In January 2009 Mjohnson teamed up with Wesley Three Wheel to bring you the world's first prog rock tribute/topical news band. The group were only together for a short time before they both went their separate ways to pursue their own projects but during their time working together they produced arguably the finest examples of this unique and original genre of musical news reportage.
The first story the band reported on was The Birth of baby Aya, a 'miracle baby' born to a mother who had died two days previously from a brain hemorrhage.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7824462.stm
The group chose to report this story musically in the style of Rick Wakemen:
Click to play track in full.
Rick Wakemen the classically trained King of pomp-rock rose to fame as a keyboardist with Prog Pioneers 'Yes', a band he left in true prog style at least three times, mainly to pursue epic concept albums with epic names like 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' and 'The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table'. Inevitably Rick was soon producing synth stage shows. In 1975 Rick put Rock-On-Ice with the stage show for King Arthur billed as an ice skating extravaganza. Considering Rick's impressive CV we asked for his thoughts on the the recent birth of baby Aya, born a whole two days after her ice skating Mother had sadly died:
Rick: "There's a concept album here - Journey of Baby Aya, Death and the Quest for Life - that's a title and we've already got at least one ice skater. The Doctors might have delivered a a miracle baby, but I'm about to give birth to another ... PROG ROCK EPIC!
Wow - Thanks for that Rick - really looking forward to it.
The second news story the group chose to tackle was the the news of a cigarette smoking toddler in Wales.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7845771.stm
This story they chose to cover through music in the style of Roger Waters from Pink Floyd.
Click to play track in full.
Roger Waters is best known as a founder member of Pink Floyd, not just a Prog Rock outfit, but one of the best selling bands of all time. Some would say that opening the Pandora's Box of mainstream success forever banishes you from the garden of Prog, but it's impossible to dismiss a band with Prog credentials like theirs: pseudo intellectual lyrics; epic noodling guitar tracks; an almost exclusively male fan base; a huge loss making stadium tour and a history of splitting up and reforming over several decades. The Floyd even pioneered a whole new angle on the traditional band break up - litigation. Basically Roger sued everyone and everyone sued Roger, except Syd, Syd went mental. Before forming Pink Floyd, Roger and Syd had been at school together, as well as music, both pre-proggers had the loss of their fathers in common, and I don't mean in Woolworths, I mean they were dead. Roger's father was killed in Italy during WW2 when Roger was only five months old, but Roger's dead daddy lived on through his lyrics, appearing in several Floyd songs and as the central theme of his cinematic Prog Opera, the film version of The Wall. Recently we were lucky enough to be granted a rare interview with Roger, so considering his experiences of absentee parenting we thought we'd find out his views on the recent news story of the three year old boy with a smoking habit, and this is what he had to say:
"So he smokes, looks like the system hasn't got to this one yet. You want me to break him in, you want me to build a wall around him? Those pipe smoking military men have a cheek telling a three year old boy that he can't smoke. They're the real cancer in this world. He's breaking out and doing what they told him he couldn't do, but he's doing it isn't he? They said he couldn't smoke just like they told my Daddy he couldn't walk away from their stupid war, and do you know what this boy said, he said 'Who says I can't smoke, I'm smoking aren't I, look at me smoking, smoking is easy even a three year old boy can smoke' EVEN A THREE YEAR OLD BOY CAN SMOKE! The system can't change that".
Though the group are currently not collaborating on any new material fans the world over are hopeful the band will reform next time a news story requires song to help the world understand.